Official

Welcome to the 8th Annual Mod of the Year Awards - the premiere event that celebrates the best creations within the modding and indie gaming scene. Developers have delivered plenty of great gameplay experiences this year, and now it is our turn as gamers to nominate and recognize the best of 2009.

From now until Feb 20th, we shall be sharing a year in review and showcasing the editors' picks of 2009, culminating in the announcement of this year's best mod and game as voted by you. The top mods and games will win the honors of being placedalongsideotherprojects that have gone on to become commercial successes and cement their place in ModDB's hall of fame. And to the winner goes the spoils; ModDB has teamed up with a whole lineup of sponsors that have provided prizes ranging from software to servers to beanbags. Everything to help budding developers excel at their craft.

2009 was the year that has had the most new profiles created to date, and my mods updating. To be nominated for an award in Best Upcoming mod projects need to have been updated significantly during 2009 and have not released (obviously) anything more then a demo. Here are the Editors of ModDB's top selection of 2009.

Naruto: Naiteki Kensei
offers a new and unique fast-paced gaming experience based on the hit Japanese anime Naruto. Combining aspects of a third-person shooter and an action-based fighter, players will be able to go head-to-head against others online casting clever and powerful jutsus, performing evasive, acrobatic, and free-form movement and melee, and utilizing an array of weapons with multiple functions.

Cry of Fear
You wake up in a dark alley, not knowing anything. What has happened anyway? You struggle after the truth and answers. Answers you want to know in the darkness and fear, which makes your heartbeat race like violent blows against your head. Where do "they" come from? What has happened? Are you just turning insane?

Airborn
is an action adventure mod in a fantastic world on flying islands eons after the world has collapsed from overexploitation.

Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist puts the player into our world, seventy five years ago - except that it's not the world as we know it. The story as it is now, although it might still be changed - time is in a constant flow. History: it is often defined by minor events, resulting in major changes.

Raindrop
September 1997, somewhere in Russia. 58 years have passed since the complex has been cut off from the outside world. You wake up in an abandoned tunnel, without even a name .

dunno why you're so obsessed about raindrop? I mean it looks good and it really has a breath taking mood right there. But it's just another Ego shooter just done in a different way.

I don't mean to start anything bad about raindrop, but you see about thousands and thousands of mods going around wich are ego shooters and are about to shoot eachother off with a gun. NNK did some good PR as it's a completly different gameplay then any other mod here registered on moddb.There's nothing wrong about it.
Honestly i thought all nominees deserved to win, each of them is awesome in someway.

i have to argue with this. naruto has a good pr, has good graphics, probably a good gameplay...but who cares? the pr doesn't have to be a good point in this section, and the liking of gameplay is just relative. these awards are getting radiciolus.

In a unreleased game PR is everything, even if your mod is absolutely ******* amazing, without PR it will be nothing. Naruto Naiteki Kensei has achieved a lot in all aspects, and deserves the Editors Choice award.

But don't worry, I'm sure you cant get your 'superior' understanding of mods across in the players choice award.

So if you rule out gameplay, graphics and PR using ModDB what else is there? Upcoming mods/indies are only judged on what they have shown through the year and how well they adapt to growing a community without having something for them to play, as I said in the video its because of this reason they received the Editors Choice award for upcoming mod. You might not like the project itself, but they do everything right and still manage to please those who are interested in the mod.

In the end it was a very close call between Cry of Fear and Naruto and the only reason Naruto came out on top was because of how they choose to show off the work they have done, and if you say that PR isnt a big deal to the Editors of a website designed around helping teams with public relations then that is just silly.

Let's rename to CrySomeMoarOfTheYear awards.
Honestly, I can't even bother to debate this anymore, you're purely flaming down a mod because it's graphics are less and it's based on an anime? Those aren't all the qualities required here you know.

Starting to think it'd be a good idea to just lock comments for MOTY Editor's Choice awards, the people's opinion doesn't matter here anyway and it just seems to end up in the unhappy side(usually the majority) down karma-ing the other side.

Good day people.
Grats to the NNK team for getting awarded, keep it up.

I can't imagine in what way Naruto is superior to an incredible looking original title like Airborn but I guess if you are a fan of the anime you are instantly going to be attracted to it over something else.

To be honest, I can see how the Naruto mod would be completely different and refreshing than most mods today, but it just doesn't seem that great. The movement looks awkward, the gameplay looks silly, and the sound is just annoying. I would have put my bet on Raindrop or Cry of Fear.

I don't mean to jump in the band wagon here, but why exactly did a mod that is already released manage to win this year's UPCOMING Mod of the Year? Wasn't this award for those mods that have yet to be actually played to the public? It doesn't really make much sense to award a mod such as NNK for the Best Upcoming Mod, since it is already in the hands of the public.

I would like reiterate that I do not hold offense to that mod, I am simply confused as to why awards are handed in a improper fashion. If anything, NNK should be in the placement of the Best Multiplayer Mod, right?

Excellent I'm pleased NNK won. I was once like you (if you have a similar opinion to most of the above posts); I arrogantly thought that a mod based on a kid’s anime could never amount to anything. But then I saw their release trailer and got interested with the bright stylised graphics and the snippets of gameplay. I read some of their media releases and watched other videos, I read a little about the team and how much work they had put into this and how much experience they had. I actually got excited for the release.

If you haven't already, please read a little about the mod and the team and watch the release trailer. You may still disagree with its win but try to understand why it won before getting ****** off.

Naruto should be replaced with ESF 1.3 or something else cuass its already released its unfair for the unreleased mods :( they only choose naruto cuass they could play it... So this is really very unfair.

Naruto is released already.. its unfair.. IF! airborn was released Airborn would have won...

No offense but Naruto has like 4 maps
3 characters
with 3 moves...

And that is all naruto its ok and im not complaining, BUT im complaing that Airborn or even Raindrop compared to Naruto make it look like a amature game, Airborn by itself is a massive art work of hard work and dedication.